A new book by our Mr. Yates recounts the madcap exploits of the world's funniest cross-country automobile race.

Editor's note: This fall, Brock Yates's new book, Cannonball! World's Greatest Outlaw Road Race, will appear in bookstores across the country. It's a collection of funny and bizarre real-life experiences written by Yates and the drivers who competed in the five high-speed, high-jinks cross-country races known as the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. Here is an account of the final race, of 1979, written by Car and Driver contributing editor Fred M.H. Gregory.

She was tall, beautiful, and more than a little drunk. Soft, round parts of her swayed back and forth under a loose white dress. She looked up with big, unfocused eyes and pleaded: "Please, take me with you . . . I wanna go."

"There's no room," I told her, and then edged my way through the bodies packed at the bar. I couldn't really blame her for wanting to come along. She'd been exposed to the high-voltage madness radiating through the place.

The Lock, Stock & Barrel, a pubby sort of joint in the swank New York suburb of Darien, Connecticut, is usually frequented by tweedy sports-car enthusiasts. On this night it was packed with speed freaks who'd been getting cranked up for hours. The crowd oozed through the bar into the huge, covered bay out back where a tuxedoed five-piece band played and couples danced on an oil-soaked floor. Everywhere there was talk of cars, cops, speed . . . thrills to come.

It was nearly midnight, and most of the crowd at the Barrel had come to witness the start of the fifth and, as it would turn out, final Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash-2800 miles of madness across the country to the Portofino Inn in Redondo Beach, California.

The 46 gathered teams had been taking off at 10-minute intervals since dusk. Bob Koveleski and his "Polish Racing Drivers" pulled out first in a Camaro Z28. By tradition, they always got the pole position. Then, as each crew and car pulled up to the start, a card was punched on the bar's time clock, and the vehicle sped off into the drizzly night.

Watching these killer cars roar off must have worked like an aphrodisiac on the tipsy good-looker. She was hot for 35 hours of red-eyed, raw-nerved, high-revving speed through the great flat middle of the United States. The Cannonball quickens your pulse like the prospect of sex.

I was trying to fight the adrenaline pounding through my veins: Stay calm, stay sober. So the looker took her case to my driving partner, Peter Brennan.

"Maybe we could strap her onto the hood?" he ventured.

"It would screw up the aerodynamics," I replied.

***

To win the Cannonball, you need a car that can cruise at 110, 120, 130, all day and all night for 2800 miles. And we had the monster for the job: a 1979 Pontiac "Fire-Am" built by automotive genius Herb Adams. He had outfitted it with a 425-hp engine, a full roll cage, a 32-gallon fuel cell, and a racing suspension that kept it stuck to the ground like a barnacle. Herb had run the car in the grueling 24-hour race at Daytona, where it had hung in for 19 hours, running the high banks of the speedway at more than 150 mph. Then it broke down. But it was an impressive showing considering the car had been driven to the race from Michigan.

Before giving us the car, Herb had installed a new motor, a powerful CB radio, and an Escort radar detector. And even though he removed the Daytona racing numbers, the Fire-Am still looked like a race car. Its nose nearly touched the ground, and the sound from its three-inch straight pipes could be heard into the next dimension. It was one of the fastest street cars in the country, and a match for any car in the Cannonball.